Jeremy Holmes Photography

This time last year I was in South Dakota photographing one of the best car collections I have ever seen. I was on way to Alaska and as I always do when traveling I tend to take the backroads. I saw an auction sign for 600 plus old cars coming up for auction so I punched the address in my GPS and headed that way. What I found was amazing not only were their over 600 cars but the setting was beyond belief. The cars where placed around two small lakes and the collection was amazing. I spent a few days taking some pics and decided to continue on to Alaska. I could not get the cars out of my mind and ended up going back. The collection was auctioned off on sep 18th & 19th of 2010. I think I ended up spending about 3 weeks photographing everything I could including the auction. Harrys knowledge of cars was amazing he could tell you what car a part was from and what years the part would fit. The first day of the auction was for the cars and the second day was for parts. Harry and his wife Sharon spent over two years getting ready for the sale. They got titles to all the cars they could and organized the parts. People came from all over the country for the sale and many came from Canada. There was people sleeping in there cars and campers on the property for the weekend. While many of the cars where saved there was plenty that people bought and took the parts they wanted off and left the cars for the crusher that was coming after the sale. I spend alot of time driving around looking for old cars to photograph and its harder every year to find what Im looking for. Its sad that I didnt meet Harry earlier but Im so lucky to have meet him at all. Its been almost a year now and I still havent worked on all the pics I took. Im sure ill be working on them still this time next year. It was a privledge to get to know Harry & Sharon and some of their family. Here is a link to the video I did of the sale.

I will be doing a general talk about my photography on Jan 11th 2011 at the Madison Camera Club in Madison TN. Its starts at 6:30pm and will last about 45 min. I will talk about Infrared photography along with my new project on Long exposures.

I first shot Infrared photography with an infrared filter and started this in 2006. I was using the hoya R72 filter and in less than a year I became very unhappy with the results I was getting with the filter. While I did get some good images with it I really wanted to get a camera converted. I was also seeing many color infrared shots and that is what I felt I wanted. In 2007 I had a canon 30D converted and I still use it to this day. I have just converted my second camera a 5D mark II and i love this camera the quality of the mark II for the money is so great. Im now finding myself shooting more and more with the filter again and this is due to many reasons. While I love having the converted cameras and find I keep many more images that I shoot with them then I do with the filter there is something about the results of the filter that seems more like art than the images I get with the converted cameras. I think the reason I stopped shooting with the filter was because its hard to get good results with it. The infrared filter is black and you cant see through it so you need to compose your shot before the filter is placed on the lens. The exposer times are more of a guess and require taking many shots just to get a correct exposed image. I usually start at F 8 for 45 seconds and go from there. Im now using a 5D mark II for my filter shots as this is my main camera these days. The 5D has a 50 iso setting so my exposures are longer than they use to be when I was using the old 5D as the lowest ISO was 100. If you’re using a camera with ISO 100 I would start at about F 8 for 30 seconds and go from there. It’s not uncommon for me to take 10 images of the same composition with the filter and if im lucky I get something I like. When you get it right though it’s an image that you will love. There are other issues with shooting with a filter also and due to the coating that is on some lens they leave a hot spot right in the middle of the image. This can sometimes be fixed in PS but requires some time and effort. Here is a website that lists what lens are good and what are bad also look here for more updates as new lens come out. There are some lens that can also act different at every F stop and focal length. Ive shot with both good and bad lens for infrared and have found that every image is different and sometimes I get a hotspot and sometimes I don’t. My two main lens now are the Canon 17-40 and the 24-105 and both are great for infrared. While I would never give up my converted camera there was a time I thought I wouldn’t be using the infrared filter anymore. I now never leave home without the filter. If you want to start shooting infrared the filter is the cheapest way to get started but get ready for some disappointment in the results until you get the hang of it. The learning curve is well worth the end result.

October ill be the Guest speaker at two photography clubs in Nashville. Oct 4th ill be speaking at the Murfreesboro photography club at 6:30pm at the Patterson park community center. Ill be discussing Infrared photography including what you need to shoot infrared and how to process the images. I will also speak some on storm chasing. I will be speaking for about an hour. Checkout there website at www.murfreesborophotos.com or the facebook page

October 14th ill be at the Hendersonville camera club 6:30-9pm at the Shackle island volunteer fire department. This will be more of a general talk where ill speak on many aspects of my photography including infrared, HDR, storm chasing,travel, and many more. I will be showing how i process my images. Checkout hendersonville club on facebook or yahoo group.

If your in the Nashville area make sure you make it to one of my talks!

The city of Gary, Indiana was founded as a booming steel city as the twentieth century passed, and areas downtown saw the construction of several impressive buildings during these prosperous early years. In 1925, a cornerstone ceremony took place at 577 Washington St. to commemorate the construction of a Gothic Revival church called City Methodist. It was completed 21 months later, at the cost of one million dollars – $385,000 of which was contributed by the United States Steel Corp. (which also founded the city). Elbert Gary, the chairman of U.S. Steel and origin of the city’s name, donated a Skinner organ as well. The Bedford limestone structure consisted of a 50-foot tall sanctuary nave and elaborate stonework, and was able to seat 950 worshipers; City Methodist had a congregation of nearly 3,000 members in its heyday. The building was also home to Seaman Hall – a 1,000 seat auditorium, and a gymnasium with a full size basketball court. Storefronts were built into the building, with hopes that the income would offset the enormous maintenance costs.

During the 1920s, Pastor William Seaman rallied against the power of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, and welcomed black worshipers into City Methodist during a time when African Americans were not permitted in “white churches.”

Gary entered a downward spiral during the 1960s, like many other industrial cities during the period. As U.S. Steel employment dwindled, the residents of Gary moved to nearby suburbs; then as jobs left downtown, city many residents moved out altogether while crime and poverty rose. By 1973 the church’s congregation had only 300 members and by 1975 the Methodists moved out of the structure. A second congregation occupied the building until they left in the early 1980s; some storefronts and office space was utilized for a while but soon the entire campus was completely abandoned.

City Methodist was burned in the Great Gary Arson of 1997, resulting in a large portion of the roof collapsed or missing. It is now owned by the city of Gary, and its future remains unclear.

In 2009, parts of a remake of the movie A Nightmare On Elm Street were filmed at the church.

One of the many great things about flickr is the ability to look up the towns I’m traveling through while on the road and i use it all the time to find things to shoot. I found this church about a year ago. When i left for Alaska I knew this would be one of my stops along the way. Gary, IN is on the northern tip of lake Michigan and let me tell you its kind of a creepy place to visit. The church is located right downtown and while its very easy to get inside I didn’t feel to great about leaving my truck in the street. The place has kind of turned into the projects. There are still plenty of people in the town but many places I wouldn’t want to get out of my truck. The outside of the church is very hard to shoot and there’s now a big ugly fence around it. The outside is so grown over with brush and trees now that I didn’t get a shot of the outside that I even liked. I wasn’t to concerned with the outside anyway as I went to shoot the inside and let me tell you its one of the best places I’ve ever been inside. I arrived there the night before but decided it would be best to shoot during the day as I really didn’t want to be there alone in the dark. I plan on revisiting this place again very soon and when i have a few people with me. While I’m happy with the shots I took I can imagine so much more at this place and the town has so much for a photographer to explore. I cant wait to go back and its so close to all the light houses lake Michigan has to offer.